One young man’s Thanksgiving miracle

Lukas Verzbicas, 20, was a phenomenal high school runner, grabbing the U.S. national prep two-mile record in 2011 and a week later becoming the fifth high school runner to break the four-minute mile in the Adidas Grand Prix in New York.

But his hope of making the 2012 U.S. Olympics triathlon team was crushed on July 31, 2012. A near-fatal bicycle training accident in Colorado left him with six broken ribs, a shattered collarbone, punctured lung and, worse, it nearly severed his spine. Doctors informed his parents, who were both professional runners, that their son would never walk again, forget the Olympics.

“Thankfully no one told me that,” Verzbicas says. After feeling a twitch in his initially paralyzed right leg, he vowed not just to return to running but to become better than before.

He began an intensive rehabilitation regimen and eventually started training with Brazilian runner Joaquim Cruz, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist.

Today, as nearly 10,000 runners and walkers join in the Oceanside Turkey Trot to offset those pesky Thanksgiving calories, Verzbicas will be on the road to his miracle comeback. The injured athlete, who was never supposed to walk again, will compete in the 5-mile race. It’s the third event he has entered in recent months. For him, it’s truly a day of thanksgiving. “I will be running for the win,” he says.

Verzbicas now lives in Chula Vista so he can work out at the nearby U.S. Olympic Training Center. His revised goal is to make the U.S. Olympic triathlon team and track and field team competing in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil.

“Going through something so difficult made me mentally stronger,” Verzbicas said. “I also appreciate my life much more.” He says the doctors who said he would never walk again now want him to make him a case study.